Quote of the Day

Richard Dreyfuss delivered the keynote address for the Oklahoma Outreach Foundation, where he offered up a some of the standard Sobriety Woo, but ended his speech with this grand heresy, which I dedicate to the new incarnation of JD:

Expressing a desire that his keynote would make the audience think, Dreyfuss encouraged recent graduates of Mission Academy to reach beyond sobriety.

“Remember, sobriety is a fabulous goal, but is it better to be a sober wife beater than a man who drinks occasionally and loves his family?” he said. “You have (graduated from) a sober high school, I commend you. I truly commend you. But as you grow up, you’ll find that what also counts is good acts and moral behavior and being kind and patient and being a loving parent and husband.”

This has got to be karma, it sure as hell isn’t the AA Higher Power. I was just about to make an analogy about Richard Dreyfuss, I kid you not. When trying to describe about the manipulation that a AA member pulls on a newbie prospect, most people just don’t understand, but they do understand well known movies. The best analogy I can use to explain how an AA sponsor invades and destroys your life is using the 1991 movie where Richard Dreyfuss playing a psychiatrist named Dr. Leo Marvin is harassed by Bill Murray playing Bob Wiley in “What About Bob?”

In this movie Bob Wiley (Bill Murray) is introduced to Dr. Leo Marvin (Richard Dreyfuss) during therapy and just like many of the AA Sponsors we know, invades his life and slowly destroys it claiming to be trying to help him using a self-help book Dr. Marvin wrote called “Baby Steps.”

This movie is highly recommended to anyone that wants to get a funny, yet very real perspective of the manipulative personality of most Sponsors in AA.

disclosure

I was told I met Richard at a hospital progam I was in.
Not sure though, I was pretty wasted.

Sally

I’ve always liked Richard Dreyfuss. Today I love him! Thanks ilse

http://www.stop13stepinaa.wordpress.com Massive

When was the last time he worked? Oh yea…he’s too busy going to meetings?

DeConstructor

Loved the movie ‘What about Bob’

I have met lot of people like Bob in and out of the roomz. Its seems like Bobs trained and cultivated in AA.

I think the movie may have been written by an ex-stepper of the AA faith.

zooromeo

“Remember, sobriety is a fabulous goal, but is it better to be a sober wife beater than a man who drinks occasionally and loves his family?”

So true… But the “fabulous goal” trumps reality with AA members.

I know a guy who I was friends with who was 20 years sober (Well call him JB) and Id just like to do all a little comparison:

Me:
Relationship status: Married, together 9 years
Jeremy:
No relationship for around 15 years, unable to stay in one

Me:
Own my own home
JB:
Had a rental (once) for 4 years a few years ago; now alternates between living with his parents & house sitting

Me:
Stable employment, Financially independent on a good Income
JB:
Sporadic, unreliable work over the last 20 years, nothing to show for it

Me:
Small group of friends, loving, supportive and fun – independent of my membership of anything
JB:
Similar & larger but contingent strictly on his continued AA membership

Me:
Drink alcohol Moderately
JB:
20 Years Sober

In AA, being “sober” and especially being active in the steps trumps everything. You could be unemployed, sponge off everyone, take no responsibility for your own life, be an asshole in the real world and as long as you come across as “Spiritual” and “on the program” – people with think you are a hero.

Ive run into too many AA members now who gave me “That look” when explaining to them the progress Ive made since leaving AA. Even doing the whole “Yeah it just wasn’t for me but if you enjoy it that’s great” thing didn’t dissuade them from clearly thinking I was a loser (in a loving way of course) .

I could tell them – “I own a $1m property in the heart of Sydney” and they’d probably think it was just a form of spiritual illness because I was OBSESSED with money Well I actually do own this property and God didn’t give it to me, nor did the spirit of Bill Wilson – i worked for it all on my own (oh and my wife did too :)) and it was only LEAVING AA that enabled me to believe I could do it…

AA.

SoberPJ

Rock on Zoo !

loulou

Love it zoo!! So so true…I am just regaining the confidence and self belief that the rooms robbed me of. Always having to pass things by other people in the program, how on earth can anyone progress in life doing that? It’s like I was treading ‘spiritual’ water for almost 6 years…always too scared to change things outside of AA, absolutely filled with fear. Today I realize the fear was a ghost…perhaps the made up ghost of BW. I love Annazed’s avatar -it says ‘Fear is a Lie’. I have found it to be true with regards to leaving AA, how else could they keep us chained to such an organization?

FKABB

There seems to be a great many like JB in the rooms. Long time sobriety, but little or nothing to show in the real world of ‘normies’.

loulou

Yeah, it’s like any achievement outside of step work, or working a good program is diseased. Whether it be material ‘obsessed with money’ like what zoo said, getting an education – your disease is telling you you’re better than everyone else, good outside relationships – well they just don’t really ‘get you’ like we do….the list goes on. I guess that’s where the cult comparisons are able to start – when a group of people try to stifle their members to the point of everything outside the group being dangerous/not like us/ you will die if you leave. How bloody suffocating!

CAROLYN K.

I love the movie “What about Bob”! He had a his pet fish hanging around his neck, named “Gill”. Just like these other roamers. Have luggage will mooch….anything-anywhere. I know of some AA guys that hit potluck dinners, so they don’t have to buy groceries. They have been in the program long enough to have SOME of the promises or MOTIVATION come to them. Instead, there is this subculture in AA where it’s permissible to mooch and sleaze off of people, but you’ll be damn straight to hell if you don’t run your new job prospects by the group first. AA is SNAFU=Something Normal All Fucked Up. They have taken recovery and turned it into a highway gas station bathroom.

zooromeo

yep, Its funny how it seems so positive when you are “in” it… But looking back, they take a negative view of ANYTHING really !!

New relationship: Sex & Love adiction…

New Job: Workaholic…

buying a house: Obsessed with real estate

Want to go to the gym: Swapping addiction to alcohol with addiction to excercise

It could go on and on…

Thats all about interpretation.. It serves AA members well to percieve these things negatively. It means they get to be lazy, avoid their fear of failure and just sit back in denial and throw peanuts from the gallery !!

Lizzi

I once read some where, ” the 12 step program
Labeled me a enabler, the 12 step program has now enabled my ex husband hide from facing reality”
“get a job”
“pay rent & bills”

Rick

“yep, Its funny how it seems so positive when you are “in” it… But looking back, they take a negative view of ANYTHING really !!”

The only point is to discourage people from leaving. You can’t trust your diseased, defective thinking, so you’d better not go out into that big “normie” world. The only safe thing for you is to stay with your own kind in the church basements. You know how sick you are, always have been and always will be, and if you tell yourself otherwise, it’s your disease talking…
Seriously, when steppers say things like “nobody holds a gun to your head” to make you stay, it just shows how ignorant they are of the power of those mind controls tactics. Constant exposure to that negativity for years is more debilitating psychologically than physical threats or restraints ever could be.

AndrewWS

Well said, zoo!

Your friend JB may have been sober for 20 years, but his circumstances in life are like mine *in the days when I was drinking* (!).

“In AA, being “sober” and especially being active in the steps trumps everything. You could be unemployed, sponge off everyone, take no responsibility for your own life, be an asshole in the real world and as long as you come across as “Spiritual” and “on the program” – people with think you are a hero.” – an inability to take responsibility and hold down a job and other commitments pretty much sums up both my past sponsors. Both now sober well over 20 years, both completely useless outside the rooms.

“

curmudgeon

I went to a meeting last night. I do that once in a while to stir things up and to enjoy people-watching.
When I was called on to share – after 6 or 7 repeat drunkalogs – I stated that I used my past history as a reminder of exactly what I did NOT want to revisit.
I added that I was working hard to improve myself, that I was quite happy with my position in life, my home, and my significant relationship and wanted to keep these things going.
Heard nothing but the crickets after I spoke.
Just for fun I should show up sometime and say that I am miserable and all kinds of fucked up and see what reaction I get?

Lucy

I hated “What About Bob?’

I was a sponsor and I was sick to death of the Bobs in AA.

Michelle

I enjoyed ‘What about Bob?’ and this quote because I have that self-congratulatory reflex about “time” and then I forget how annoying it is because nobody cares unless you are in AA how much time you have really.

CAROLYN K.

Zoo,
Got a real good chuckle out of, “Buying a house: Obsessed with real estate”. LOL

Jill

Zoo-
based on my true story

Overtime : Slavery

CAROLYN K.

Jill,
You just do your job and get to that there meeting so we can elaborate on Zoo’s list. Shoo, Shoo go to your knitting group; gather some new slogans. LOL Said with much sympathy =(